What a kid hugging a delivery robot taught me about innovation
I just released a free 7-day LinkedIn course called SHIP 7.
That’s what I was laser-sharp focused on last week Saturday at a coffee shop, early in the morning.
Until I saw something that broke me out of my zone.
It was one of those hot days in Los Angeles. The streets were buzzing. People walking into restaurants. Skateboarders sailing past, playing their music. A few people walked back from the farmer’s market down the street. Me, I was still locked in, weaving through the people. Everyone was going somewhere.
In the midst of all the movement, I saw a kid hugging one of those food delivery robots. He hugged it and placed his head on the top while his dad watched over him.
I laughed because until that point I had never seen anyone be nice to those robots.
That’s when it dawned on me that I, just like all the other adults, was too locked-in, I was losing my playfulness.
Your lack of play is aging you.
You’re not playing enough.
That kid was hugging the robot like a friend.
Earlier that day, I’d seen the same kid in my apartment elevator.
He danced in front of the mirror, all the way to the 30-something floor. He did a split. Spun around. When I saw him again, later that day, I wasn’t too surprised. He seemed like a playful child and his parents allowed him to express himself. However, when I contrast the hug he gave that Uber delivery robot with the actions of my fellow downtown adults.
The difference is night and day.
The adults are angry about the robots. We scowl at them. They piss me off too whenever they stop randomly in the middle of the road, seeming all confused. One day, one of them turned towards me at the light and told me to push the pedestrian button (how rude). I’ve seen a couple of people kick them.
But why are we so upset?
I’ve used the robot once. It was actually quite pleasant (and doesn’t guilt me into giving a tip).
So what’s the gripe? Perhaps it’s not the technology itself. Maybe it’s because the older you get the more you lose your child-like wonder for the world. Unlike that child, the changing world seems like an annoyance.
You’ve abandoned play.
When I saw that hug, I realized that that kid is only going to know a world with this type of robot. There is nothing to be resistant to. This is the world he knows. That world is also going to change for him too.
The same way it changed for me.
I grew up when telephones were still attached to the wall and you had to spin a dial to make calls. We tapped the “hang up” buttons in rapid succession to make calls when our parents locked the phones. A fun little game until we got bored and moved on to something else.
Along the way, what came so naturally became unnatural. The world became fixed. New tools felt like threats instead of toys.
Growing up, I heard “Nifemi, stop playing with that” from parents, teachers, and friends. “When are you going to get serious?” Those statements chip away at wonder. When you stop playing, you stop training creativity. Life becomes bland.
Even when practice has shown that play itself can lead to “serious things” and innovation.
My first business started as a joke between my brother and I. That joke became the seed that grew into me making a website. Learning how to build apps. Making one, then pivoting the business into a six-figure advisory business.
It didn’t start as this serious endeavor.
I’m seeing the same thing happen with AI.
The latest craze, OpenClaw, was started by a guy experimenting on his phone, building stuff for fun. Now, he got acquired by OpenAI (perhaps he should have gone to Anthropic though but that’s another story).
There are people out there experimenting with the new technology while most people aren’t touching it.
Yes, AI has environmental costs. But so does everything we use daily.
Generative AI has presented an opportunity to build stuff that people paid developers on upwork $1k+ (just for them to ghost you – true story). You can do it for a few dollars and your AI agent wouldn’t ghost. There’s an opportunity to experiment with stuff that could possibly change the trajectory of your career or at least add some spice and wonder to your life.
The biggest excuse I hear from people is that they don’t have the time.
No one does.
You have to actively choose to play.
Play and build something useless.
Here’s what I’m noticing on the practice ground: the best innovators are playful. There’s always some element of fun in what they do.
But most people resist experimenting with AI because they don’t know where to start.
For the last two months I’ve been building something with all seriousness because I wanted to develop something that solved a specific problem I had. That kid reminded me that I need to play and discover wonder again.
I am going to be doing that this weekend.
Either spend at least 20 minutes making some music or revisit the voice digital twin I built and abandoned last year.
The difference here is to do something that has no particular purpose, no clear ROI. Just straight up curiosity.
I know there is that voice in my head that’s going to pop up and say “you can be doing something more important.” And that’s just a voice that I don’t have to listen to for those 20 minutes.
Here’s what you can try:
Think of something useless you’d enjoy making. Not useful. Not productive. Just fun.
“I would like to build a [robot that compliments my outfit / tool that turns my emails into haikus / app that rates my Spotify playlists / voice agent that I can call to unplug me from the matrix]”
Open Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini. Type that sentence and add: “in the next 15 minutes.”
See what happens.
The AI might start building immediately. It might ask clarifying questions. It might give you instructions.
Do it. Feel stupid. Struggle. Discover your playful side again.
Either way, you’re playing. You’re building. There’s no bad outcome.
Closing Reflection:
It’s easy to get down on how fast the world is changing.
You can choose to do the adult thing and be so serious, moving tight and mindless from one task to another. But being an efficient task checker is becoming a commodity in an era where automation can do that faster than you.
A different approach is needed. A more creative one.
One that requires experimentation – where curiosity becomes a skill itself. The easiest thing to experiment with right now is AI. Use it to make music, make a video, or build something you’ll actually use. But don’t tie it to any outcome.
Do it for 15 minutes each day this week. Share what you do with me next week.
I invite you to experiment and play.
Press Play.
Yours truly,
Nifemi
P.S. If you want to experiment and share what you learn, I just released a free 7-day email course to write and grow on LinkedIn. It might come in handy one day.
